December 29: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1907, Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist Frederick Boyd Stevenson wrote, “On January 1, 1908, the Greater City of New York will be ten years old. It is a healthy youngster. It has outstripped all other municipalities in the world. On the New Year it will enter upon another decade of growth, which promises to be more wonderful than the decade about to close. When one goes back over the history of Greater New York, one is astounded at the giant strides that have been made. You can delve through the musty volumes of city reports and mayors’ messages, which tell the story of this development, if you will, and even in these columns and columns of dry figures you will find appealing to you an eloquence that you cannot resist. But it is no part of this article to dig up the figures in the municipal graveyard to any considerable extent. It is rather the intention to present to view the Greater City and its work in the concrete — its glories of the past and, perhaps, its glorious possibilities of the future.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1929, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON (A.P.) — The President and Mrs. Hoover plan to observe the tradition which has made the annual New Year reception at the White House an affair of official importance and social brilliance. The announcement of the order of the reception was the same as that in years past. Short directions at the bottom of the page informed the public that ‘during the morning reception, persons to be received whether in carriages or on foot will enter and leave the White House by the east entrance.’ The president will receive the members of the cabinet and the diplomatic corps at 11 o’clock New Year’s morning. Ten minutes later the chief justice and associate justices and other members of the judiciary will be received. At 11:15 senators and representatives will pass the reception line, to be followed at 11:25 by the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey officers down to and including the grade of lieutenant colonel and commander. At 1 o’clock in the afternoon the general citizenship will be received.”
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.